


awake at night i'll be singing to the birds

by rkahks



Category: Naruto
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Character Study, F/M, M/M, Post-Chapter 699, Pre-The Last, re-edited in December 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:41:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22681885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rkahks/pseuds/rkahks
Summary: When the group starts to disperse and Naruto walks away hand in hand with Hinata, Sai approaches Sakura. “Well, isn’t she familiar?”“How so?”His words fall past his lips, bitter: “Like Sasuke.”Her reaction isn’t something Sai had expected. Her face looks like pain. “Well, you are too, you know.”
Relationships: Sai/Uzumaki Naruto (one-sided), Sai/Yamanaka Ino (minor), Uchiha Sasuke/uzumaki Naruto (minor)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 65





	awake at night i'll be singing to the birds

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from 'your best american girl' by mitski, as well as the whole idea for this plot

When Sai is first assigned to a mission with Naruto Uzumaki, his duty is to act as a double-agent and eventually take out the life of a Rogue Ninja who means a threat to the Hidden Leaf. But the light Naruto radiates when he talks about Sasuke Uchiha flashes on Sai’s body, and it helps him realize that, despite what he had himself believe, there’s still a thread attached to his heart that he’s been hanging out to. He’s still alive.

“Those of the Root have no names, no emotions...” a fellow Root Black cop reminds him, by the sight of his picture book with his drawings of him and his late brother. Sai finishes the memorized motto: “No past and no future. There is only the mission.”

By crossing Sasuke Uchiha’s picture on his bingo book, Sai will have gotten rid of a shinobi who has betrayed the Leaf and is a soon-to-be host body for Orochimaru, leaving this one to perish from his illness: two rabbits in one shot. He has done this before, killed hundreds of shinobis who threatened the Leaf before, from many, many Hidden Villages before, and after finishing this mission he will soon be assigned to do something similar again, and that way it will go for missions and missions on end, until his abilities aren’t useful for Lord Danzo anymore.

Naruto isn’t anything like that, though. He fails to be the shinobi Sai had expected him to be, the jinchuuriki of the Nine-Tailed Beast who will one day be an asset for the Leaf’s military force. No, there’s so much more: he has a name; he’s transparent with boiling emotions inside of him, hangs on to the past with a firm grip and looks up to the future with bold determination. He doesn’t see Sasuke as a traitor, steps in on his behalf and continuously lets his wrath consume his body and mind over him.

“Naruto thinks of Sasuke as a brother,” Sakura explains with a tensed-up brow. “You have an older brother, so you must know what that’s like.”

“I don’t _have_ feelings.” Sai replies.

Despite this claim, the empty space of his missing book in his pack does tickle on him later that day, after he joins Orochimaru. Sakura hands it to him upon meeting him again some hours later: “Why do you carry around that picture book?”

His foggy mind isn’t capable of coming up with a reason— it’s just instinctive, reaching out to that book and holding it in his hands. So he just stares at one of the covers; the boy he drew on it stares back.

Sakura answers her own question: “You’re not as emotionless as you’d have everyone believe.”

What can he say to that?

Sakura’s words — all of them — are still echoing around in his mind when they run from door to door inside Orochimaru’s hideout; Naruto stumbles on his feet and falls on shaky knees, insistent all the while on finding Sasuke, but for once he complies on laying back to rest. It brings back memories. As Sai picks out his book from his pack and looks at the boy on the cover and then at Naruto’s face, the smile of his late brother suddenly pops up in his mind, cutting off all the echoes. The fog in his mind quickly clears out and there it is, right at the corner, his bond with his brother: something that Sai can touch and feel again.

After that, as he raises his blade against Sasuke Uchiha, it is not to take out his life. Sai announces, “I feel like you can help me remember, Naruto, bring back the things that were once really important to me.”

By observing Naruto and Sasuke’s bond, he may have an insight on his own bond with his brother, and maybe get a step closer to being truly alive, is what he decides. So he won’t kill him. When they fail in retrieving Sasuke Uchiha back to the Leaf, Sai asks permission from Lord Danzo to stick around Naruto and Sakura for a little longer. For a while, he feels glad for being a Sasuke stand-in.

The war is over, but there are still corpses left to remove from the battlefield and survivors to find. It’s arduous; the bodies are all buried under boulders, that are tied up in broad, wide roots. It’s a task the searching team can’t put off, Sai tells himself, but not something he can set his mind to focus on right now. So he discreetly slips out and into the edges of the battlefield, where the tents are.

It feels all too familiar, to come in a tent and be welcomed with the sight of Naruto with bandages and bruises all wrapped up around his body. Sai’s guts twist in his stomach as he holds back a gasp. He blinks once, twice, but this is what it is: a reprise of the day Naruto refused to sell Sasuke out, before this whole war was started. With the aggravation of a missing arm.

By the tent’s corner, Sasuke sits quietly and doesn’t let out a word the whole time Sai’s there. This is the way it goes until he leaves the Hidden Leaf, a few months later.

Sai runs into Naruto on the day of his departure, raising an eyebrow. “Sasuke’s leaving today. I thought you’d be seeing him off?” Naruto just drops his head with a heavy sigh.

“Are you listening?” Sai hurriedly turns to see a stooped over Ino, who’s staring at him quizzically. He stares back. “I asked if you’re going to drink with Shikamaru and the boys tonight. What are you drawing there?”

Before his brain can process what he’s been told, Ino leans over him to peek at his sketchbook, uncomfortably close. To establish boundaries, one should always speak their mind honestly about what is bothering them and search for a compromise with the person they have a relationship with. Or that's what he once read in a book. But establishing boundaries with Ino is hard; she’s always so energetic and enthusiastic about talking to him or standing next to him that Sai can’t bring it in himself to say, “You’re bothering me.” So he just goes with it. It’s a tricky business, interacting with people.

“So it’s Naruto!” She exclaims, arched eyebrows and a smile on her face. “Those are really good, Sai. Do you do portraits too?”

Well, sometimes. He just draws whatever is on his mind. But he tells her, “Not really,” as he turns his head just to find that Naruto, who had been practicing kicks and punches a few miles ahead of him just a minute ago, is now gone. Sai frowns.

He looks down to his sketches. The brushes are rather rough, especially vague around the head zone, the undefined facial features. But the anatomy looks dynamic, a striking kicking pose, even if he needs to do something about how it seems like Naruto’s rather balancing himself on one foot, while the other one just seems to be hovering in the air.

Somewhere beside him, Sai can hear Ino suggesting, “You should make me your model some time!”

Maybe he can finish it at home?

“Yeah, maybe.”

The _clink_ of cups hitting together in a toast, loud snickering, unwanted physical contact and conversations Sai doesn’t know to keep up with: that’s what a party is. He tries to take a sip of sake but it just tastes awful on his tongue, too, so he just withdraws his cup on the table, and settles on just acting as an observer. He wasn’t even let known about this fraternizing besides from what Ino had told him — something to do with Kiba’s post-mission celebration — and he’s just here because he ran into Naruto just before he got in the BBQ Dinner Restaurant. At least they welcomed him warmly.

They’re probably all tipsy at this point. Kiba goes on about how none of his recent missions are like the ones he used to take years ago. To be more exact, he sighs on how his spirit “is helpless against diplomatic, _get-along-gang_ missions from Peace-Treaty times.” Naruto retorts that “Kiba’s sissy ass’ actually glad now that he won’t have to manhandle a real adult-y job.” And Naruto snorts against Kiba’s hard push. Sai doesn’t know what is happening.

Naruto’s laugh, Sai notices, sounds a little different when he’s drunk. It’s a little bit drier, a little bit louder, seems to come more further from the back of his throat. Sai looks down to his own cup of sake, frowns, wonders if he should push it a little harder. How can they endure that sour taste to the point of getting intoxicated?

“I—” Naruto announces, slightly stumbling to stand up— “am going to take a piss.”

And he saunters off with a wave of his hand, dismissing all the crew’s boos and jeers. There he goes, the hero of the world who put an end to a war. Sai watches him. A brief silence settles.

“So…” Kiba breaks it, putting his glass down on the table. “I hear’ Sasuke’s been hewe in the Village while I was away?”

Sai looks up attentively. He’s heard about that too.

“Yeah,” Shikamaru replies, swirling his sake, “To deliver a special scroll to the Sixth. He comes from time to time. He must have spent a few days around from what I know but I only saw his face in the Hokage office and only once.”

That gets a scoff out of Kiba. “After ewerything bastward did. Motherfucker played awound with his pink arwmor and kept trying to cause a hot fuckin’ mess for the Kages, _twice_ ” he mumbles, twitching his nose, “Still, he gets to wander awound the world freely. If it was me, though...”

“I don’t like him either, man,” Shikamaru sighs wearingly, “but that was the Sixth’s decision, alright. And an ally from low places _can_ be pretty useful for intelligence-gathering.”

Sai looks down to his cup once again, reflective. Then he feels someone nudging his arm with their knuckles. It’s Kiba.

“Yeah, and wouldn’t twis guy know about that!” He chuckles, the corner of his lips lifted. Sai raises his eyebrows in response. “I just think Naruto should’ve taken Sasuke down a looong time ago, ‘s all. If only _twis guy_ and _Sakura_ hadn’t fucked up with us that one time, _spur of the moment_. What was up with that, Sai?”

“Seriously, Sai, don’t tell Naruto about what we said,” Shikamaru warns. “I think you know how that guy can be, especially when it comes to Sasuke.”

Yeah, Sai had enough of Naruto’s glares back in their first mission together. And his shape tone, back when he questioned the things he was doing for Sasuke. For the first time that night, he opened his mouth to speak: “No problem.”

Just as he finishes that sentence, Naruto comes back to their table, patting on his stomach. “I’m stuffed, mans! I think I’m done for tonight.”

Sai, whose ears have been tuned to any indication of having that party being over with, makes sure not to appear too eager to leave as he stands up. Throwing a few coins on the table, they both retrieve themselves on their way out.

When they reach the moonlight, Naruto puts his hand on Sai’s shoulder, muttering, “Man, what the hell.”

If Naruto just wants to try bonding with him by touching his shoulder or if he’s using it as support not to fall, Sai can’t really tell, so he sticks to wrapping an arm around his waist anyway, just in case. Naruto stares at his face briefly, but doesn’t protest. He even rests an arm around Sai’s shoulders.

Sai doesn’t know what to say. Half of the way is spent in silence. He doesn’t mind helping Naruto standing up to walk, — _a friend in need is a friend indeed_ , is what he read once in a book, — but his skin rubbing off on _his_ skin feels too warm, and Naruto slightly dangling his head and fluttering his hair over the slope of Sai’s jaw tickles.

He lets out a rueful sigh. “I wonder where Sasuke is now.”

“Well, he shouldn’t have gone too far yet. So he’s probably still in the Land of Fire, at least.”

“I heard what they said about him, back a’ the table.”

Naruto says that, but there’s really no accusation to be made here, since Sai himself barely said a thing back in the restaurant. So he just sighs again, and they go back to silence. By the moonlight, they walk.

“We’re here,” Naruto announces when they arrive at his place, and he retrieves his arm back from Sai’s shoulders. Sai wonders why he misses it dearly the minute it’s gone, since the warmth felt so distressing while it was being rubbed off on him on their way home.

He turns his head to look at him, to say goodbye, Sai thought, but instead— Naruto just stares. His eyes drag over Sai’s face, insistent, and it’s not that that’s unlike Naruto at all, it’s just that the sensation of their torsos brushing and their skins exchanging warmth just a minute ago still whisper on Sai’s body. He wills himself to stare back nevertheless.

Looking this closely, Sai takes his time to pay attention to Naruto’s features, to notice how his new short haircut trimmed to the hairline fits him differently and makes him look older now, how his cheeks are outlined by a subtle red, and his relaxed eyebrows make his gaze seem more serene and composed. Sai stares, stares and tries to find on Naruto’s face a clue of what is going on in his mind, but he can’t find it.

When he’s about to open his mouth to ask if there’s something wrong, Naruto reaches out his hand and rests his fingers on the curve of Sai’s neck. There it is, the warmth on his skin again, this time with his pulse beating against Naruto’s palm. He shudders by that thought.

Naruto slips his hand to cup Sai’s face, pressing his thumb on his cheek. For a second, Sai holds his breath. He doesn’t dare to open his mouth to make questions, even if he wants to, because he fears the movement of his jaw will dispel this comforting feeling. He only wishes he could understand how such gentle action could make him feel so tense. He doesn’t want to feel like that forever.

“Naruto, I—”

Naruto presses his lips against Sai’s.

The warmth rushes up through his face, all his facial muscles unmoving except for the widen of his eyes and a gasp trapped in his mouth. Naruto keeps pressing, pressing as if he hopes that if they stay like that for long enough, he will finally be able to get something out of it. Sai joins him, pressing chapped lips against chapped lips, and he thinks, dazed: _ah, so this is kissing._

He had never experienced it. He’s _heard_ of it, read about it, first in a _Make-out Paradise_ book he borrowed from Master Kakashi and then in books and articles regarding the subject when he went to search about it. The touch of the lips as a sign of reverence, greeting, _love_ … and sexual desire?

Sai feels Naruto’s tongue tickling his lip. _This_ part he’s only read about in the fiction books. Naruto presses his fingers on his skin where the jaw meets the neck, and tips Sai’s head upwards. Instinctive, Sai opens his mouth a little bit, and there’s the warmth once again, as it increases when their tongues clash.

He doesn’t like it. He flinches with his own inexperience, with this hot clammy sensation entering his mouth. The lip-touching feels uncomfortable now, not quite matching with how the tongues move together, and Naruto’s teeth keep scraping on it, too. Sai wants to quit, but at this point he doesn’t know how to make it stop. So they keep going at it— Naruto cups Sai’s face with both his hands fiercely, insists on moving his tongue with determination, and Sai complies. He presses his fingers on Naruto’s ribs, too.

Eventually, they find a rhythm they can take pleasure out of.

They’re still holding each other when it’s over. Sai really wants to wipe the damp away from his lips, but he worries it will offend Naruto somehow, who’s retreated to eye him fixedly. Sai doesn’t know what to do now, still uncertain about what his movements will provoke, but saying goodbye is the only thing that comes to his mind. He doesn’t, though. He waits, until Naruto points to his front door with a movement of his head, holding on to Sai’s elbows as he guides him into his house.

The next morning, Sai wakes up laid down on a bed with Naruto sitting up at his side, staring at him fixedly again.

His eyes are not quite like last night’s. This morning’s eyes are widen eyes, eyebrows raised with wrinkles on his forehead and mouth shut closed.

“Good morning,” Sai greets, formally.

“ _Uh,_ ” Naruto babbles, shakily shifting the sheets away and moving from the bed. Sai can’t help but notice the way he bows his head downwards his stomach, like he’s taking a peek at something. “Hey, Sai! ‘Sup?”

Sai blinks, takes his own seat on the bed, looks at how Naruto’s standing up from some distance. Neither of them say anything. He waves his arms, claps his hands together. “So! Do you want to eat? There’s some lamen, y’know, if you want some.”

“It’s alright.”

“No, c’mon!” Naruto hurries to the kitchen, turns the stove on, starts to boil some water. He takes some instant noodles out of the cabinet, asks Sai what flavours he wants. Sai just wonders what could be making Naruto so peppy in the morning.

At last, they sit down to eat. The way Naruto sends looks at him while pretending to be only savoring his lamen makes Sai shifts uncomfortably.

“So, Sai, about— last night…” He starts, in a sort of hesitant way. “I’m, um, I’m sorry.”

Sai stops his motion mid-way, his hand hovering between his open mouth and the cup. He tips his head upwards to take a better look at him. “For what?”

“For, y’know. The kiss...es?”

Sai frowns. Naruto blinks.

“Or whatever! It was no big deal, anyway!” He compels a compulsive laugh. “Right?”

“Yeah, I didn’t mind.” says Sai, but when he looks down at his cup again, a cold sensation sweeps up from his guts to his ribs in a flow; suddenly, he feels doubt. But about what?

“So,” he looks up to Naruto again. “I have to go on a mission today, so, um.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

As the days pass, Sai keeps recounting what happened on that night and on the following morning. Naruto’s apology echoes in his mind, and Sai keeps trying to relive the sick in the stomach he felt just before he left the table, to sort out reasons, find a link, something that can explain how his body can react with something dread-like to just a few words.

He considers, for a while, _having_ minded the kisses — maybe Naruto apologized because he noticed Sai’s reluctance and regretted having done it. But could it be translated to repulse just like that, that warmth he felt when Naruto and him were that close together? His mind feels lighter when he remembers the tact of Naruto’s hand cupping his face. He sighs when he pretends that his fingers are Naruto’s and touches his neck with them, just like Naruto did. Pulsation rushes down his crotch and beyond when he imagines their bodies pressed together— unfamiliar, but instinctively good. His sketchbook pages are filled with Narutos, Narutos and Narutos. No, he decides— no matter how much Sai can push the matter, and how much he thinks he doesn’t understand feelings, what he felt could have only been _joy_. He wants to be with him.

But why did he apologize?

Between shelves and books of the Leaf Library, he seeks for his answer. “Sakura, I want to ask you something.”

Sakura looks up from her reading with a quizzical look. She closes the book. “What is it, so all of sudden?”

“I—” Sai stops his tongue, realizes he hasn’t thought ahead enough on how he should tell the story. But Sakura is raising her eyebrows, and he hasn’t got much time to think. Don’t name names, is what he decides. “If someone had kissed you but acted strange the day after, what would you do?”

A loud gasp. “ _Kissed?_ Sai, are you seeing someone?”

“Just help me, please.” Says Sai. Sakura pouts.

“Well,” she props her back on the chair she’s on, as Sai takes his own, “I don’t know. How weird?”

“They said they were sorry for kissing me. And seemed jittery.”

Sakura hums, shifting her gaze to the distance while placing her chin between two fingers. “Maybe… they regret kissing you?”

What? “But why would they?”

“Um, I don’t know. They may have thought it was wrong, but only after they had already done it.” Sakura decides, shrugging. “But they could also just be feeling nervous, you know. And thought you didn’t like what they did.”

“But I said I didn’t mind…” Sai trails off, looking down. They sit in silence for a minute.

“C’mon, don’t be like that.” She pats him on the shoulder. “You’re also you, remember? Talk to them about your feelings, I’m sure it would help to clear things out.” 

Clear things out.

Heart rate speeding up, a knock to a door. Naruto greets him with widened eyes. “Sai?”

“I need to speak with you. About that night.”

Sai notices the movement of his throat when he swallows. With a sigh, he steps out of his house barefoot, closes the door behind him and pockets his hands, attentive.

Sai doesn’t take his time, for all the help books he’s read tell him to be direct at moments of conflict. “I asked someone for advice and—”

“Wait, you told people about that night?” Naruto interrupts, his voice elevated.

He blinks, says, “No. No, I didn’t,” watches how Naruto seems to sigh again, and takes the space again to say what he must: “They told me I need to be direct to you.”

Holding Naruto’s gaze, Sai wonders why his throat feels so swollen. He forces the words out, anyway.

“I said I didn’t mind kissing you. But did _you_ mind kissing me?”

Naruto eyes widen again. He opens his mouth to talk, closes it, furrows his brow and shifts his gaze. With a deep breath, he drops his head and stays like this for a minute. Sai waits for an answer patiently. “Look, Sai, what I did…”

He trails off when raising his head; their gazes met. He doesn’t turn his eyes away this time, only holds Sai’s shoulder, a tight grip. Naruto’s grip.

He can’t help the creeping anxiety that flows through his chest and makes its way to the tip of his fingers. _But you’re also you, remember?_ — It’s _Sai’s_ turn to cup Naruto’s face, press _his_ fingers on his neck and _his_ thumb on his cheek, and kiss him, _hard_. As hard as he’s trying to fight this tiny voice that Root has imbued into his brain, teaching him that love ought not to be anything but a word. He won’t let the upbringing he went through ruin this for him, not this time. “It’s not just a word,” Sai tries to convey with his tongue in Naruto’s mouth. “Love is this bliss I feel when you’re holding me.”

They keep going at it, Naruto’s back against the wall and his hand caressing Sai’s ribs, Sai’s shoulder, Sai’s hair— especially Sai’s hair, at the nape, when he riffles it upwards brusquely and grips onto the spiky locks. It’s exciting; this is what it is to be truly alive, Sai decides. Love is this bliss I feel when you’re holding me.

That’s the way they go for a few weeks: exchanging heat, tracing fingers on the bumps of each other’s spines, running hands all the way through each other’s roots. Naruto makes a pose, Sai adds another drawing to his collection. They slide into Naruto’s blankets and press their bodies together, stay that way. The watch pointer on the stand by the bed spins and Sai gets out of the bed to run errands wishing he could never have to leave. When he finishes doing his tasks, he comes back to where Naruto’s waiting for him.

It feels like belonging. It’s intimacy. Sai thinks, _That’s a bond neither of us have ever shared with anyone._

The Sixth assigns him to a Rank-B mission to check on reported activities at the Fire’s border and neutralize the situation as stealthy as possible. A small poor village that is being reigned by thugs. He emphasizes, pointedly: “If they’re shinobi from other Hidden Villages, do _not_ kill them unless strictly necessary.” The transition from wartime to peacetime is a sensitive period, and Lord Hokage’s really trying to do his part and not to start pointless conflict. Not something shinobi are used to — especially Sai, for that matter.

It will be a three-day trip to the border, plus an undefined period, however long it takes for the team to stabilize the situation, plus the trip back home. They leave first thing in the morning. Sai spends the night at Naruto’s and gets a goodbye peck when he walks away at dawn.

The mission goes relatively smoothly, which is just a way of saying it’s nothing that they haven’t seen before. The enemies, from the Mist, aren’t mediocre, but not skilled enough to put up much of a big fight, which would have made Sai impressed that they had managed to overpower this small land’s leader, weren’t these people so clearly meek, and vulnerable. After a week, when the mission is concluded, they feel bad enough not to just take a good night of rest and nothing more from these people; it is decided that they’re going to request assistance from Lord Hokage to help raise the village’s infrastructure and security. Sai’s teammates return to the Leaf to report the mission and send back the troops, while he stays to prevent successive attacks and protect the people. That wasn’t according to his plans, he tells himself when he thinks of Naruto, but there’s no help.

The assistance troops arrive four days later, and Sai spends a spare day in the village to guide them about the musts and mustn'ts. He leaves by the first ray of sunshine and takes the three-day trip by himself. By the time he makes it to the Hokage’s Office, his body feels outwardly uncomfortable: he’s battered, greasy and limp from all the work, _and_ the walking. And when the Sixth reads his report, nods with a, “Well done,” and finally discharges him, even more so, like when one spends all evening with training sessions for the fatigue only register on their body when they’re done with.

When Sai thinks of going home, he takes the way to Naruto’s, as if those were intrinsically the same. And, of course, Sai thinks, there’s Ichiraku Ramen on the way; maybe it wouldn’t be the right path to Naruto’s house if there weren’t, anyhow—

Naruto’s laugh sounds from the restaurant. Sai’s ears are tuned to his voice at this point; so he follows the music with a spring in his step and a smile across his face, like the fatigue was already easing up on his muscles just by the thought of running into Naruto. He steps up, pushes up the fabric hanging on from the roofline to come in and is greeted by the turn of the heads of Sasuke, Naruto and Sakura.

He can hear Naruto and Sakura both enthusiastically greet him, but he’s caught by Sasuke’s stare, so serene and nonchalant; his only sign of acknowledgement. Sai can only stare back, astounded by dark, fine features against light, thin skin. Sasuke’s eyes quickly turn away to look back at Naruto, whose eager rambling leaves no room for Sai to make his presence noticed. A huff slips past his lips, and he stands there, in a haze, with the fatigue weighing him down now more than when he finally got to the Village an hour ago.

“Come on, Sai, want to sit at my side?” Sakura offers, with a bright face, gesturing to the seat beside her.

“No… I just got back from my mission,” Sai replies, and he raises his tone, “and I think I’m going home,” but even so Naruto doesn’t look at him. So he steps away from the Ichiraku Ramen after Sakura wishes him a good rest and takes the path to his own house.

Sai hoped that what happened at Ichiraku’s was just a one-time event, the ecstasy of a dear friend’s visit fogging Naruto’s mind, and that, soon enough, Sai would hear a knock on his door and would open it just to be tied up in a tight embrace that he would squeeze so much warmth of. He doesn’t. For two weeks straight, he barely sees Naruto— just occasionally, by distance, from where he would be too entertained with Sasuke’s presence to turn his head at his direction. For two weeks straight, he comes home by the end of the evening to switch the lights on and see before him a room he spent 19 years in, but feels too unfamiliar with. He sits on the bed, stares at his knees; they stare back as if they could whisper, “I feel cold.”

Sasuke leaves, eventually, like he always does. But not even that makes Naruto come back.

He’s dating a Hinata now.

Kiba pulls him by the neck with his arm for a tight embrace; Sakura softly hits her knuckles on his arm with a wide smile. Sai only narrows his eyes, “ _Who_ is that?”

Among all the people, holding her hands together as if not to take too much space, all soggy clothes and with her eyes staring at everyone else’s knees: that’s Hinata. Sai studies her, notices the familiar features: dark hair clashing fiercely against light skin and fine traces sculpting her face.

He watches how awkwardly their limbs move when they’re side by side, as if they don’t know how to act or how to hold each other. She suppresses a shriek and turns bright red when Naruto reaches out to hold her hand. He wears only an uplift of the corner of his lips as a smile when Hinata looks at him. And this time, when Sai stares at them for a little too long, he turns his head, and stares back— just to pretend he didn’t, by turning his eyes away and avoiding looking at his direction for the rest of the time.

When the group starts to disperse and Naruto walks away hand in hand with Hinata, Sai approaches Sakura. “Well, isn’t she familiar?”

“How so?”

His words fall past his lips, bitter: “Like Sasuke.”

Her reaction isn’t something Sai had expected. Her eyes widen, her chin drops and her throat holds back a gasp. While straitening her eyes, she looks at Sai fixedly. It worries; her face looks like pain.

Eventually, Sakura closes her eyes and pulls herself back together with a breath, retorting, “Well, you are too, you know.”

The crude, bold sound of a knock on Sai’s front door resonates through his one-room house. It’s Naruto. There’s the tingle of a tremble on his voice when he says, “I was thinking... I could borrow a book from you?”

Sai furrows one eyebrow as he eyes him and Naruto just holds his gaze. Eventually, Sai steps aside to allow passage.

“Thanks,” Naruto chuckles. “I knew you’d be the perfect place to come, since you read so many of these how-to things. You see...” A beat; he turns to face him. “Hinata and I are going on our first date.”

This time, when the cold sensation sweeps up from his belly and starts to make its way to Sai’s heart, it also muffles Naruto’s voice. So the rest of what he said is unheard. It triggers a memory in Sai’s mind, from the weeks when Sasuke was in the village, when he hoped he would open his door to Naruto holding him tight in a hug. His skin itched for that warmth... but this is just the opposite.

Feeling queasy, Sai swallows. The nausea creeps in his chest and makes it feel stuffed. Without saying a word, he points a finger at a pile of books that rests on the stand by the sofa.

He never thought there would be a time he would feel so uncomfortable that he wouldn’t know what to do with his own hands. As Naruto rushes to the pile and flops on the floor to read the books, Sai takes a seat on the sofa and props his arms on his thighs, paying attention to the trace of his toes on the carpet. His head feels heavy, weighing his neck down.

“Sai… I’m glad I consulted you.” Naruto asserts, breaking the silence, without taking his eyes off the pages. It prompts a twist on Sai’s chest.

“So, you’re going on a date...” He forces out.

Naruto ignores him. “Oh, I see... so it’s polite manners for the man to pay for everything on a date…”

Sai’s swollen throat is going to rip his neck out, is what he thinks. It pulses and makes it hard to pronounce the words; but if Say doesn’t speak now, he might choke on those feelings.

“Why did you come here?”

It might have been the tone he used that made Naruto stop reading and turn his head to look at him, astounded. When their gazes meet, the gleam that shines on Naruto’s eye makes his throat discharge all the stucked words with heat.

“Now you’re with this girl. Naruto—” so many memories flash before Sai’s mind: the outsides of Orochimaru’s hideout, the depths of the Leaf’s forest, the edges of the Great War battlefield, the core of a Leaf street. Just like what happens when you’re about to die; from where Sai sees it, it feels like his whole life’s point just comes down to Naruto’s insistence on Sasuke. It’s infuriating. “Are you really okay with how things turned out?”

Sakura’s remark from the other day — _Well, you are too, you know_ — calls him back to their first mission together, when this whole Sasuke’s Stand-in crap started: an unsaid truth. Sai knew it, Sakura knew it, Naruto knew it. And he didn’t think twice about spilling out what was on everybody’s mind: “He’s not one of us! All he could ever hope to be is a Sasuke _wannabe!_ ”

The sighs he emits when he thinks about Sasuke’s whereabouts. The gleam in his eyes when Sasuke passes by to visit.

“First it was me… now her… all you’ve been doing is finding replacements for Sasuke.” His chest tightens; he’s expelling the words out of his mouth, but he might still choke after all. “Do you love her, Naruto? Did you love _me_?”

Albeit loud and troublesome, to Sai, it was this explosion of feelings that made Naruto so magnetizing, so dearly familiar, and so much like his brother. And if the driving force of those feelings was a person, then maybe, by helping keep their bond alive, Sai could learn more about his own feelings about his brother, reignite them, and be a little more like Naruto. Or so he thought.

Naruto’s insistence on protecting their bond turned into an obsession. He started overlooking Sasuke’s mistakes and offering himself to bear the responsibilities for them— Sai watched it on firsthand, when blood spilled out of Naruto’s mouth as a Cloud shinobi threw punches and kicks all over him. When he couldn’t stand it no more, he stepped in, but Naruto said it was his choice. But Sai couldn’t accept this. No matter from what angle he tried to study it, he couldn’t understand why one would be willing to risk so much for someone who only caused them pain. But when he asked Master Kakashi, his answer only was, “I think you might know why.”

Well, maybe he did. But he doesn’t want to anymore.

He’s got nothing else to say, and, even if he had, he wouldn’t, for he’s not even able to breath anymore. Maybe this is why his heart is beating so fast in his chest now, to produce more oxygen for him. Now, Naruto is standing tall in front of him, with a shocked expression. Sai drops his head. He hears the thump of his book being placed on its place on the pile.

“Sai...” Naruto whispers, “I’m sorry.”

Without saying anything else, he walks out.

They don’t talk to each other any more after that. It feels like a hole in the fabric of Sai’s life, one he doesn’t have the tools to fill in. It doesn’t help when he sees a glimpse of Naruto’s hand holding Hinata’s. Or that he’s in everything Sai sees, because he’s the world hero. Seeing him hurts, and makes the hole grow wider. Sai still fills his sketchbook pages with lines of Naruto’s face, nevertheless.

In one of his drawing sessions, Ino comes to talk to him again.

“You’re drawing every time I see you, Sai. And it’s Naruto again?” She chuckles. “What, are you in love with him or something?”

Sai stops his hand mid-motion and, without really thinking, closes his sketchbook. He can’t keep doing this.

Turning his head to look at Ino, for the first time, he notices her. Not _her_ per see, because she always does everything to make herself noticed, but what he knows about her.

Sai remembers overhearing about Ino’s desperation when word was spreaded that Sasuke had joined the Akatsuki. “Ino won’t stop crying,” Kiba had hissed. Shikamaru remarked that she could even do something reckless, would anyone do anything to him. Sai understands it now; she must have been another one who truly loved Sasuke.

Or: she has sun-kissed hair that she displays as she likes. She’s loud and pours her boiling feelings out without a problem. And she’s always around.

He stands up to level their gazes. “Where would you like to go on a date with me?”

Widened eyes, bright red cheeks. “What?”

That may not have been the best approach. Sai breathes in, thinks of all the books he’s read. When asking someone on a date, one must sound assertive, and preferentially romantic, maybe by pointing out something they like about the wanted person. He sets with saying something he knows she’d like to hear. “You’re beautiful. Would you like to go on a date with me?”

She composes herself, eyes him askance. “I thought… Sakura had told me you were seeing someone else?”

“I told her I kissed someone… but that was it.”

Ino crosses her arms across her chest, furrows her brows and wringes her nose, shifting her gaze into the distance, as if she’s thinking. Then, turning her eyes back to Sai, she smiles. “I’ll take that. But just because you’re cute.”

They go out to eat out that same week, at night. She tells him about her day at work and he listens, and he pays the bill before leaving. Then, they go out for a walk, hand in hand, and Sai will admit that there was some warmth in her grip. Mid-way through crossing a bridge, with the moonlight peering over them, they kiss. Ino crosses her arms around his shoulders and ruffles his hair at the nape. He holds her at the waist and presses their body closer. Their lips move together, their gazes lock. Sai notices how Ino’s eyes look like bliss, thinks. He might eventually learn to live with his role as Sasuke stand-in.

Naruto is going to get married soon.

The wedding invitation rests on Sai’s fingers, the golden bold letters flashing in the light. He isn’t surprised that Naruto has bothered to invite him, even after everything they’ve shared and exchanged. No one except for them knows about it. Besides, every Leaf villager has received this card.

Sai flips and turns the card over. He wonders if Naruto is feeling content. He wonders if he himself is content.

Four years ago, his resolve about abandoning his mission and choosing not to kill Sasuke was about sticking around with Naruto for a while longer to learn more about himself. He wanted to find, in his own heart, what was really important to him, and protect it at all costs. What he didn’t realize was that from that moment he broke with his roots at his feet, these so-called “important things” of his, his feelings, that he was seeking, have been rippling and wavering inside of him, oscillating and fluttering between the two of them. With each end tied up to each of them, he and Naruto: their bond.

The bond Naruto shares with Sasuke is something Sai couldn’t and will never have with him, maybe with anyone— and not just Sai. He won’t push the matter anymore. What they have is unique, their own, something only they will ever understand, even if they don’t; something that blown-up arms and longing hearts can illustrate better than if they try to put it to words.

That’s what Sai learned. For as heartbreaking and enraging as it was to watch them in their sorrow, and even take part in it at some point, it has also, at least, granted him a new conception — of his own feelings, his bonds, his role and identity. The assurance that he is alive. And even if he doesn’t like what he sees, he realizes, it is still something that he can mold to give shape to whatever he wants. This, so of great importance to him, himself. Something that Naruto has, too, and can also do anything he wants to do with, probably better than Sai ever could. Is what he hopes.

**Author's Note:**

> _you're the sun  
>  you've never seen the night  
> but you hear its song from the morning birds  
> well, i'm not the moon  
> i'm not even a star  
> but [awake at night i'll be singing to the birds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_hDHm9MD0I)_
> 
> thanks for reading, you can find me on tumblr as [@narultimate-hero3](https://narultimate-hero3.tumblr.com)


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